Sign Language.

I don't pray. Not like I should, anyway. Not in that, "Thank you for waking me up/pray in all situations, good and bad" kind of way that you're taught to. I pray over meals, and in airplanes before takeoff and after landing. I pray most times when asked to, and occasionally in times of need. But not every day; not every morning and night.

For the longest, I didn't know how. I'd heard the rhetoric about how form doesn't matter nearly as much as substance and sincerity. About how there are no "magic words," and that one should simply converse with God as though He were just another being standing in the room. I'd tried, quietly in my own head and aloud in my own solitude. I knew I'd be heard if I spoke the words. Otherwise, it just felt like I was thinking to myself. Long ago - back in the days when I took a knee in the corner and prayed before every hockey game I played in, much like I'd seen my heroes do in the pros - I was taught that there was no hope in praying for specific outcomes. Rather, you should pray for the virtues that would encourage you to be the arbiter of your own progress. Fortitude, patience, leadership, discernment, grace ... I was a pro at asking for any of those.

But times have changed. As I find myself consistently questioning where I am currenly stationed in life, what it's doing, and how much longer I can stand to take part, my prayers have become increasingly selfish and specific as needed. What to do, where to go, does it matter. Get me out, help me see, place me where I need to be. Change my life, change my surroundings, change my heart. With increased selfish surety and intensity has come, to a point, increased frequency. The conversations have come almost easily, some aloud and some pointedly occurring as one-and-a-half-way conversations in my head during my quiet moments. "Be still."

This morning, I was still. Wednesday mornings are always difficult and today was unlike any other. I've been traveling, for business and pleasure, in the last couple of weeks and I have been bitten by the travel bug. I've had the experience to be away from this city, out with friends, not thinking or looking back at where I've come from. Laughing. Breathing. The the result of a travel weekend is always a difficult, slow, dragging week. And in the middle of every difficult, slow, dragging week is a Wednesday. I woke up with the same feeling of dread-cum-sadness that meets me most mornings when I'm feeling as though I am one-hundred percent in the wrong place. Rolling out of bed and into the shower always feels like more of a chore than a wake-me-up, but more often than not I'm able to make it in a decent elapsed time. Today was no different. Or so I thought.

Standing in the water, I prayed. It was quiet. I was still. Conversational to a point. The questions and requests were minute and grandiose all at once: Show me a way out; show me that what I do is worth it; show me where I need to be; pass along a sign to help me understand. Hundreds of hundreds of thousands of people ask for signs every minute of every day. We ask because we want to believe that it's that simple - that something will show up in front of us that tells us exactly what we want to hear. And we will believe it, because it's is just that: it's what we want to hear. Please, God, show me a sign to give me some direction because otherwise I'm drowning standing up.

I pray that prayer and I stay silent. The shower ends, the uniform goes on, the door is locked, the day officially begins. More often than not, a standing prayer is forgotten. It almost becomes inconsequential. The day goes on without it being given a second thought. But somewhere in my normal, hump day morning so much akin to so many others, my phone vibrated. I thought nothing of it until I took a moment to read the text message that came through. A picture. A picture of a little girl I'd known some months ago. A former client of mine, now adopted and on her way to living the normal life everyone wanted her to have amongst family. She, all of two years old, was dressed with a backpack strapped to her, wretching her face at the camera. The caption was simple: "[She] going to school." I responded simply in kind, remarking on how adorable she is. The response to that was much longer, and telling in the way that signs tend to be. Her intelligence was quantified; the pride her mother has in her magnified. They're moving, and they vowed to see me before they go. I was thanked, profusely, and made aware of how much love they have for me. And I hadn't given this child a second thought since she exited my caseload. But they still thank me, even now, some many months after the fact. And the love. The love.

There's an inherent danger in asking for signs. Two, in fact. One is that there's no guarantee that your sign will be clear. You're left, then, seeing EVERYTHING as a sign to be interpreted. Little is not imputed with some deeper meaning that you develop in your own mind to meet your own motives. The second is thus related: we make signs say what we want them to, and in the case of clear ones, ignore them completely if they don't fit into our narrative. Thus, purpose defeated. We want our God to tell us what we want to hear like everybody else, and if not, then to meet our silent prayers with silent response.

As you can imagine, I was puzzled. This could have been my sign. This could have been exactly what I prayed for being manifested in one random happenstance, playing out on my Blackberry. But it doesn't fit my narrative. It doesn't comport to the story that I'm trying to tell with my life. It doesn't afford me the agency that I asked for, or the big red 'EXIT' sign that I've been begging for. It's an affirmation - proof that I do matter, despite my own second-guessing and despite my feelings of outright helplessness. It's an assuredness that proves my worth as more than a cog in this infernal machine, but as a human who touches people on an individual level and helps them walk across their own personal finish line. I matter, no matter how much I may hate Wednesday mornings. Or Mondays. Or the other days that don't begin with an S and aren't federal holidays. No matter how much I despise 5:00pm every Sunday because it signals the backside of the weekend. I still touch people's lives. Intimately.

I met the picture, the ensuing text message, and the second picture that bookended the conversation with some mix of sadness, disapproval, confusion, and indifference. The stories didn't line up (does that negate the call-and-response that God and I may have involved ourselves in today?), so what difference did it make? I achieved some self-congratulation, but that doesn't mean I get to stop here. I may have received an answer that should cause me to dive in headlong and dedicate myself to the craft I practice, rather than toeing the line and feeling like a fish out of water. Or I may have been the victim of one of fate's silly, condescending coincidences. I may never know.

The day has wound to a close, and I am no closer to understanding what happened today than I was when it happened. However, I know better than to close the conversation. I know to Be Still. To listen, to observe. To be aware, with an open mind and heart, and stay alert to the times when that one-and-a-half-way conversation becomes a two-way street. Rather than deny its existence, I'd be far better served to inhale its presence - to repeat my prayers, to continue my walk, and never lose sight of life on the ground.

Be still, and hear the voice of God.